On my way out of the citadel, I discover a small paneled library devoted to travel books about the region. Why, I wonder, are writers perpetually drawn to the Balkans? What fascinates us about these varied lands? I'm not sure I can answer that without slipping into generalizations, but come we have for centuries—ready to see, listen, taste, and then write it all down. The library holds about 750 books in Serbian or its variants and another 750 in English, quaint travelogues such as The Eastern Shores of the Adriatic in 1863, with a Visit to Montenegro and the impossibly out-of-date The New Map of Europe, 1911–1914. In a glass display case, I find a first edition of Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, its original dust jacket showing a bright-colored sketch of the old bridge in Mostar, across the Bosnian border.

Next to me, a white-haired British woman examines the book as well. "I've given her a go a few times," she says to her husband. "And I don't find her very easy to read."

"Yes," her husband replies, "but she caught history in a snapshot, didn't she?"

About a half hour beyond Budva is the famed former fishing village of Sveti Stefan; once I see its cluster of red roofs from the coastal road, my worries about the developers temporarily recede. Sveti Stefan, which dates back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is packed onto a small island connected to the mainland by a reinforced sandbar. The setting reminds me of Mont-St-Michel—an architectural wonder atop wave-slapped rocks. For centuries, the inhabitants relied on the sea's protection to fend off conquerors, all the while hauling in their catch of tuna and octopus.

In the 1960s, Tito evicted the fishermen, turning the island into an upscale resort with a small casino. For a few years, Sveti Stefan attracted a weird mix of East-West celebrities: Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Willy Brandt, and Bobby Fischer are all reported to have sunbathed here. This brief moment of the jet set faded long ago, but the glamour is ready to return. In 2007, Singapore's Amanresorts signed a thirty-year lease for the island and two nearby properties. The company promises to refashion them into one of the most luxurious hotels in Europe. Soon Tito's beach pad will be worthy of James Bond.

When I visit, however, Sveti Stefan is closed, awaiting its new tenants. The renovations have yet to begin, and the medieval town has an eerie, after-the-plague feel to it. I cross the causeway to find the elaborate wrought-iron gate—the island's only entrance—locked. On the other side, an old man is sitting in a beach chair, his belly testing the strength of his shirt buttons. I try to wave the man over to ask him about the island's future, but he ignores me. I call hello, and he points at his parasol and waves and waves. He keeps on waving until I figure out he's telling me to go away. On the nearby beach, I talk to one of the security guards on foot patrol. He is a veteran of the civil wars and wears his scars in a red-blue boiled complexion. "This brings many jobs," he tells me in a hell-and-back voice, "but now Sveti Stefan is no longer for Montenegro."